In the first half of 2022, under the influence of the general environment such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the New Crown pneumonia epidemic, the freight rates of each market segment showed different degrees of fluctuations. In the second half of the year, the direction of the market tariff is the focus of attention from all walks of life at the moment.

A few days ago, Shanghai International Shipping Research Center China shipping prosperity index preparation room on shipping enterprises to carry out the survey shows that nearly half of the ship transport enterprises that the second half of the market prices will continue to rise, of which 12.5% of the enterprises that the second half of the freight prices will rise more than 50%. 9.56% of enterprises that will rise 30% to 50%, 29.41% of enterprises that will rise 10% to 30%; while 27.21% of the enterprises said that the second half of the price level is basically stable compared to the first half of the year, the price fluctuations in less than 10%.

Similar views are held by both container and dry bulk transport enterprises. Among the surveyed container transport enterprises, 55% of them said that the price level will continue to rise in the second half of the year, 20% of them think it will rise by 30% to 50%, 35% of them said the price increase will be 10% to 30%; while 35% of them said the price level will fluctuate in the range of 10% in the second half of the year.

Among the surveyed dry bulk transport enterprises, 58.82% of them said that the price level will continue to rise in the second half of the year, of which 5.88% thought it would rise by 30% to 50% and 52.94% said it would rise by 10% to 30%; while 26.47% said the price level will show stable fluctuations in the second half of the year, with the price change within 10%.

International shipping bears about 95% of China's foreign trade cargo transportation volume. Affected by a variety of factors such as supply and demand, weather, policy, as well as fuel prices and port handling, the volatility and frequency of maritime freight prices are significantly greater than general commodity prices.

Since 2019, the global container shipping market prices have been on the rise, compared with the 2018 increase of more than 5 times, the highest record in the history of the development of container shipping. Rising sea freight prices directly lead to a significant increase in enterprise logistics costs, especially for spot enterprises, the risk of fluctuations in freight rates is a great deal of pressure, making it unbearable.

This problem is expected to be cracked. The reporter learned that, in order to better help spot enterprises to manage the risk of price fluctuations, based on the Shanghai export container settlement tariff index (European routes) of the container tariff index futures products are scheduled to be listed for trading in the near future.

Recently, Shanghai International Shipping Research Center conducted a survey on the trading demand of container, port and shipping service enterprises for the index futures, and the result shows that more than 40% of port and shipping enterprises have trading demand for the index futures. Among them, the demand of container transport enterprises is higher, but 23.08% of them are worried about the high risk of futures market; among other shipping service enterprises and port enterprises, some of them also expressed that they do not understand the specific situation of the index and lack of relevant personnel for futures operation for the time being.

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